From Teenage Entrepreneur to African Business Mogul, the Story of Ashish Thakkar

It might not be easy to understand how someone could just be turning 40 years old and already have entrepreneurial experience about two-thirds his age. This is the story of Ashish J Thakkar.

Though of Indian descent, the Thakkars moved to the United Kingdom in 1972 after Idi Amin enforced the expulsion of Asians from Uganda. Ashish was then born 1981, in Leicester city. He spent some of his childhood at Rushey Mead School as part of Belvoir S form group until his parents decided to relocate back to Africa – this time to Rwanda.

Again, they were forced to leave Rwanda after two years following the Rwandan Genocide. Older Thakkar fled with his family to Burundi, before settling in Kampala, Uganda as refugees. At the age of 14, Ashish was put in school to continue his education. As a student, the young man had already been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. He was selling computers and computer accessories to his friends and teachers in school. From here, he decided that he could have a life-long career in business. Expectedly, his parents refused to let him. Their question was - What life is there for a teenager who drops out of school going into business? Many negotiations later, they agreed to let him start his own business on the condition that he would return to school if it did not work out. At the age of 15, in 1996, he dropped out of school and used a loan of $5,000 to start his own business.

He started a small IT shop (which would later grow to become Mara Group), in a shopping mall across the street from his father’s shop in Kampala. He began importing computer parts from weekly trips to Dubai, even desktops as well, and later started offering IT services.

The young man was so resolute in his dealings, refusing to give in to teenage distractions that might have come his way. After recording success in IT, Ashish diversified into packaging and property development, and later into manufacturing, real estate, infrastructure, asset management and agriculture. Thakkar later relocated the company headquarters to Dubai, while maintaining business operations in Africa. In more ways than one, the family’s history of moving from one location to the other appears to have made Ashish into a street-wise and determined hustler, and these things played a role in the success of his business.

In a 2012 interview, Ashish insisted that a strong sense of perseverance and a great dose of positive thinking played a huge role in his achievements. After many years of success, the Mara group has also added financial services, tourism and BPO services to its list of services. Mara Group employs about 11,000 people and has a presence across several African countries.

There is also Mara Phones, a part of the Mara Corporation that launched smartphone factories in Africa, which includes AfriOne smartphone factory launched in Nigeria in 2017.

Ashish remains humble in spite of his impressive achievements, as he says that all of it is still a drop in the ocean in the scheme of things. Given the early age at which Thakkar embraced entrepreneurship, it is imperative that he has learnt immense lessons in the journey.

He recounted that when he first started business, he would make the mistake of ignoring old projects as soon as he started a new one. “That was a huge mistake. You must always keep your eyes on all the balls, no matter how small or big those ventures are” he warned.

Learning hard lessons from his own experience is one of the reasons Thakkar advocates mentorship for entrepreneurs. “If I had someone to tell me how to do things, what to do and what not to do, Mara Group would be in another place altogether – 5 years ahead I would say. So for me, the first element is mentorship and having access to a community of like-minded individuals. If you have the idea, the business plan, the team and the leadership to execute it, the funding will come more easily, but key to all this is a mentor to guide you!” There is no way to ascertain what Thakkar is worth at the moment, but this figure should run into billions of dollars if his several businesses are anything to go by.

For Ashish Thakkar, a legacy worth being remembered for is not his wealth, but to see Africa come of age, and compete aggressively on a global scale.

A sour grape for Thakkar

In 2013, Thakkar entered a partnership with Bob Diamond (a former chief executive of Barclays) to launch Atlas Mara, a company that invests in commercial banking institutions across Africa. With a whopping $325 million in funding, the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange, but shortly afterward, the stock price went into a downward spin till it had lost 95% of its IPO price.

As at October 2020, the banking group’s share price approached the loss of 100% of its initial value and this raised the question of what went wrong. From an IPO launch price of $9.83, the stock was trading at $0.30, showing a 97% drop. Some reports and opinions say it was a function of a series of wrong decisions, some others say it had to do with a flawed operational structure from the outset and some pointed fingers at the management.

Whatever the reason, the plans of the company to become a leading player in the Sub-saharan Africa banking system did not materialize as planned.

Other interests

The non-profit arm of the group is the Mara Foundation, which focuses on entrepreneurship and education of young African entrepreneurs. “I have taken my greatest lessons in business and created the Mara Foundation to help early stage entrepreneurs” Thakkar said of it.

Through this foundation, he launched the Mara Mentor, a mobile application that connects young entrepreneurs with business professionals.

Mara Foundation provides entrepreneurs with the Entrepreneur Launchpad, a business mentorship program which lasts six months. The Mara Launchpad is an innovation and enterprise center for young businesses, where entrepreneurs pay an affordable fee to access a professional office space and a community of likeminded individuals. There is also the Mara Launch Uganda Fund, which offers venture capital to start-ups and growth-stage companies.

Thakkar was appointed a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2012. He has participated in several high-capacity events including the 2014 UN Global Accelerator where he presented and worked with over 100 entrepreneurs and UN officials like Michael Dell, Barbara Bush and Arianna Huffington. He also participated in the US-Africa summit, hosted by the White House in 2014.